


Sometimes

by lotesse



Category: Kairos (Time) Series - Madeleine L'Engle
Genre: Family, Femininity, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-21
Updated: 2005-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:54:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Meg O'Keefe feels that the world is reproaching her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes

Sometimes she feels that the world is reproaching her. Wasting yourself, the wind screamed at her. Could've been, the waves whisper plaintively against the white tropical sand. Such a pity, the oak trees around her childhood home hiss. And the people too: Mother, Father (oh, Father!), the twins. Not Charles Wallace, never Charles Wallace, but he's her own, her baby, her love, and he would never. Not to her.

She knows what they say, her siblings and classmates and acquaintances. Such a shame about the Murray girl. Yes, I've heard that she's quite brilliant. Not quite as brilliant as her husband and mother, but then again who could be? Yes, she was probably right to back out of the competition while she still had some pride. It's not good for a woman to challenge her man like that.

Sometimes she wonders. Are they really right? Does she feel inferior to her mother, to Calvin? Is she afraid of being less? She doesn't think so, but it's hard to be sure when everyone else is so strident, and resolve often wilts a bit in the face of theirs.

Calvin doesn't think that way, and she loves him more and more each morning. He doesn't speak down to her, doesn't think of her as less. When he looks at her he doesn't see the pretty, loving housewife and mother that everyone else sees. She knows that every time he looks at her he remembers the Stars and It and Mrs. Who's spectacles, farandolae and cherubim and Echthroi, Naming and kything. To Calvin she's Meg, just Meg, gawky and angry and sometimes insightful and brilliant. She knows, because the same thing happens to her each time she looks at him. He's Calvin, just Calvin, and she loves him. She knows his Name. They've not needed words for a long time. His kisses are still like sunlight and the long shadows of pine needles and the numberless stars, and the kythe between them has twined into a strong, thick thread, so omnipresent that she scarcely notices it anymore.

Sometimes she looks around the little house on Gaea. It's a bit of a mess, and the detritus of the children is strewn about the jetsam on the shore. Away in the girls' wing she can hear Poly singing an old hymn-tune. She always marvels a bit at Poly, the child who came into the newer, more loving world that she and Charles Wallace had found with the unicorn. She always wonders if perhaps Poly remembers any of it, if she ever has dreams of the infant unicorns drinking moonlight and of the fire from the roses. Charles' clean laundry, folded neatly, is sitting tidily in the exact middle of the room, gathering dust.

When they all sing together in the evenings, Calvin's warm voice holding the tenor line steady for the boys, Poly trying for the high notes, Rosy gurgling along in a completely different key, she stops worrying about it.


End file.
